Vox - Amazon’s HQ2 headed to Arlington, Virginia, after pulling out of NYC locationhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2019-02-28T18:30:00-05:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/178404692019-02-28T18:30:00-05:002019-02-28T18:30:00-05:00Andrew Cuomo is reportedly trying to get Amazon to come back to NYC
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5tnnVuQ2oqVB1nDRHB6674sUsJk=/0x0:4133x3100/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63148029/GettyImages_1061174142.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaking in November on Amazon’s HQ2 plans in New York. Citing local opposition, Amazon has since backed out of its plan to build an office in Queens. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several dozen local business owners and executives, politicians, and community groups signed on to an open letter urging Amazon to open an office in New York City.</p> <p id="pltJjH">Some New Yorkers rejoiced after Amazon announced it <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/14/18225003/amazon-hq2-new-york-pulling-out">would no longer be building</a> a massive, 25,000-employee corporate campus in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. But others — including Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, who helped broker the deal with the tech giant — were less pleased. And now a group of them are begging Amazon to come back.</p>
<p id="tcslUV">Led by Cuomo, a disparate coalition of politicians, business owners, and community activists have signed on to an open letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, urging him to reconsider backing out of the deal, the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/nyregion/amazon-hq2-nyc.html">New York Times</a> reported on Thursday. Signatories include representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Carolyn Maloney, the presidents of four public housing tenant associations, and the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and JetBlue. (Cuomo did not sign the letter.)</p>
<p id="1CiTqE">“We understand that becoming home to the world’s industry leader in e-commerce, logistics and web services would be a tremendous boost for our state’s technology industry, which is our fastest growing generator of new jobs,” the letter reads. “We know the public debate that followed the announcement of the Long Island City project was rough and not very welcoming. Opinions are strong in New York — sometimes strident. We consider it part of the New York charm! But when we commit to a project as important as this, we figure out a way to get it done in a way that works for everyone.”</p>
<p id="E1C78K">The letter also states that Cuomo will “take personal responsibility for the project’s state approval,” and Mayor de Blasio “will work together with the governor to manage the community development process.”</p>
<p id="idJgb7">Cuomo, the Times reports, has been “furiously working behind the scenes to lure the company back,” and has repeatedly spoken to Amazon executives, including Bezos, by phone over the past two weeks.</p>
<p id="Qmrcrb">But Cuomo’s efforts may not be enough to get the company back. Public opposition to the idea of an Amazon campus in New York City began brewing long before the company announced where its so-called second headquarters, which it dubbed HQ2, would be. </p>
<p id="HPrZVS"><a href="https://www.recode.net/2018/11/9/18077342/amazon-hq2-headquarters-jeff-bezos-dc-ny-virginia-long-island-kara-swisher-scott-galloway">Some critics speculated</a> that Amazon’s search for a home for its new office park, which it framed as a national competition, was a way of wresting as many incentives as possible from whichever city it ended up choosing. The company ended up deciding to divide its second headquarters between two cities: <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/5/18066814/amazon-hq2-locations-selected">New York and Arlington, Virginia</a>. (Amazon got approximately $3 billion in tax subsidies, grants, and other financial incentives from New York’s city and state governments, plus $573 million from Virginia and $23 million from Arlington, the company <a href="https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-selects-new-york-city-and-northern-virginia-new">disclosed in November</a>.)</p>
<p id="BbyPLL">While Virginians <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/in-crystal-city-news-of-amazons-arrival-inspires-yearnings-for-a-facelift/2018/11/13/eed7f5e0-e777-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.78d1a748edb8">initially celebrated the deal</a>, Amazon’s impending presence in New York City was met with staunch resistance by a coalition of grassroots organizations, labor unions, and local politicians who were opposed to the tax breaks the company, which was founded by the richest man in the world, was receiving. </p>
<p id="fIDGFg">HQ2 critics also expressed concerns that Amazon’s presence would exacerbate gentrification in Long Island City and the surrounding neighborhoods, and claimed that its Amazon’s labor practices, anti-union stance, and the fact that the company once pitched its facial recognition system to Immigration and Customs Enforcement made the company a bad fit for a city like New York, which prides itself on progressive values. </p>
<p id="E9EOIt">According to Times reporter J. David Goodman, who broke the news about Cuomo’s recent attempts to woo Amazon back, activists’ opposition to Amazon’s “practices far beyond the five boroughs” — namely its attempts to work with ICE and its stance on unions — was of the major factors that caused Amazon to pull out of the deal in the first place.</p>
<p id="YfKo5Y">If that’s the case, Cuomo’s efforts to get Amazon to reconsider may not be enough. New York’s governor may try to quell local opposition to tax breaks and grants, but getting activists and Amazon to see eye-to-eye on larger issues is a much weightier task.</p>
<p id="WZ9QsQ"><em>Want more stories from The Goods by Vox? </em><a href="http://vox.com/goods-newsletter"><em>Sign up for our newsletter here.</em></a><em> </em></p>
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/28/18245347/amazon-hq2-nyc-cuomo-new-york-times-open-letterGaby Del Valle2019-02-15T17:40:00-05:002019-02-15T17:40:00-05:00Amazon scrapped its New York City plans. Some residents are elated — others are disappointed.
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vZxXGO4torK3TPcg6AwwnKLMI4A=/176x0:3024x2136/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63061681/GettyImages_1065471438.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>People opposed to Amazon’s plan to build a second headquarters in New York hold a protest inside of an Amazon book store in Manhattan on November 26, 2018. Amazon has since scrapped its plan to build a Queens campus. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“I wanted there to be a deal, but not the deal that was on the table. I wanted there to be a fair deal,” one Queens resident said.</p> <p id="B1Xn2W">From the moment Amazon <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/5/18066814/amazon-hq2-locations-selected">announced its plan</a> to build a massive corporate campus in the rapidly gentrifying Queens neighborhood of Long Island City, the lawmakers responsible for the deal — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the latter of whom jokingly offered to change his name to “Amazon Cuomo” — <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/19/18103411/cuomo-de-blasio-amazon-hq2-defense">went to great lengths to explain</a> how Amazon’s presence in the city would be a boon for all New Yorkers.</p>
<p id="98aPRt"> “This is a giant step on our path to building an economy in New York City that leaves no one behind,” de Blasio <a href="https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/amazon-selects-new-york-city-and-northern-virginia-new">said in November</a>, when the deal was first announced.</p>
<p id="8taSkx">Now the deal is dead. Amazon still plans on building its other new corporate campus <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/11/20/18103065/amazon-hq2-finalists-long-island-city-crystal-city">in Crystal City, Virginia</a>, as well as <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/13/18091618/amazon-nashville-east-coast-hub">a “hub of operations” in Nashville, Tennessee</a>, two cities that welcomed the e-commerce company with open arms. But Amazon<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/14/18225003/amazon-hq2-new-york-pulling-out"> confirmed it would no longer be building the Queens campus</a>, part of a plan known as HQ2, soon after the New York Times broke the news on Thursday, citing opposition from local lawmakers as evidence that the company had no way of building “the types of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.” </p>
<p id="hLQcFv">Some New Yorkers, particularly the many community groups who opposed the deal from the outset, were so elated they <a href="http://gothamist.com/2019/02/15/amazon_queens_victory_party.php#photo-1">threw a late-night block party in celebration</a>, complete with a mariachi band. Others were less pleased. Real estate developers who had bet that Amazon’s presence in Long Island City would drive up rents were stunned, <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazons-pullout-from-queens-n-y-stuns-real-estate-industry-11550182281?mod=article_inline">the Wall Street Journal reported</a>. David Lichtenstein, founder of the real estate company the Lightstone Group, <a href="https://twitter.com/mrkorangy/status/1096434850607910914">reportedly called</a> Amazon’s decision to back out the “worst day for NYC since 9/11.” </p>
<p id="EUca1p">The day after Amazon said it was scrapping its plans to open a Queens tech hub, I went to Long Island City to ask residents and business owners how they felt about the company’s decision. </p>
<p id="7u800T">Shawn Dixon, owner of the Long Island City barbershop Otis & Finn, told me he was surprised Amazon pulled out of the deal without trying to negotiate. Dixon and two friends attended the first anti-HQ2 protest in November with a sign encouraging Amazon to pay its fair share of taxes and support local businesses or else “stay the helipad out!” — a reference to <a href="https://slate.com/business/2018/11/amazons-new-york-hq2-helipad-jeff-bezos.html">the helipad CEO Jeff Bezos reportedly requested</a> as part of his deal with the city. </p>
<div class="c-float-right"><aside id="DAa3et"><q>“I was looking forward to getting a night job [at Amazon], but then I found out on the news that they’re not coming here” —Louise McMillon, a resident of Astoria, Queens</q></aside></div>
<p id="jFCePz">“The thing is, I actually wanted there to be a deal,” Dixon said, “but not the deal that was on the table. We thought we could get to a fair deal. I’m disappointed in the way the deal was brought about behind closed doors. I’m disappointed that Amazon didn’t come to the table. If them playing this all-or-nothing game foreshadowed how they’d be as neighbors, then [Amazon deciding not to come to Queens] is the best thing for everybody.”</p>
<p id="ih9X1E">One good thing about Amazon’s decision to come to New York, Dixon added, was that it brought attention to longstanding problems residents and business owners in Long Island City faced, chiefly <a href="https://citylimits.org/2017/08/25/cityviews-we-have-to-talk-about-gentrification-in-long-island-city/">rapidly rising rents</a> for residential and <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/2018/10/23/18013348/small-business-jobs-survival-act-mom-pop-nyc-council">retail renters</a> alike. “Long Island City is a real estate bubble — everybody is sitting on these empty storefronts and they don’t want to lease anybody because they’re waiting for [speculators] to pay tens of millions of dollars for this land,” he said. “Landlords don’t want to give long-term leases because they want developers to come in and buy them up.”</p>
<p id="qztvp3">Jorge Centeno, whose father owns the nearby LM Cafe, said Amazon’s presence in the neighborhood would have been good for business — but, he added, it would have likely raised rents for locals who would then be pushed out of the area. “It’s disappointing for us, but on a collective level I think it’s best that they didn’t open [an office here],” he said. “It would have been a domino effect.”</p>
<p id="64D6tY">“The mayor should have done a better job of talking to Amazon about the problems that were going to exist — New York isn’t the kind of city where you can throw something down the throat of a community,” said Jason Haber, a broker at the luxury real estate firm Warburg Realty. “This was all done behind closed doors — there were no stakeholders that would have been opposed to it that were brought into the process.” But, he added, the city and state were right to give Amazon subsidies. He said that otherwise, it’s likely that the company would have chosen another city. </p>
<p id="d6CL40">“There are really two sides to the coin,” Justin Farman, a Long Island resident who commutes to Queens every day, told me. “It could have been very beneficial, but it’s not like [the people who opposed Amazon coming to Queens] pulled their points out of thin air, you know? They were valid.” </p>
<p id="5F6cOJ">Farman said he was initially wary of Amazon’s plans to expand its presence in New York City — “I was under the impression that it would cause more traffic and it would get a lot more congested here than it’s already getting,” he said — but then realized “it would bring a lot of jobs here and could probably bring a lot of money in for the city.” Amazon had repeatedly claimed it would hire 25,000 employees for its Queens campus over the next 10 years. Now, Farman said, those jobs would never materialize.</p>
<p id="pQxLZg">Although he sympathized with those who opposed Amazon’s presence in the city, and agreed that the $3 billion in subsidies and financial incentives the e-commerce giant would receive from the city and state were “a bit crazy,” Farman said it was “shocking” to him that progressive groups flat-out opposed Amazon, and added that its presence in Queens could have been a boon to low-income people in the area, especially tenants of the nearby Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing development in the community.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/tnpiALuy26kcL0r9hTON2Fh-ZdQ=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13769304/GettyImages_1124906409.jpg">
<cite>Drew Angerer/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Activists and community members who opposed Amazon’s plan to move into Queens rally in Long Island City in celebration of Amazon’s decision to pull out of the deal on February 14, 2019.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="UwVWLm">But Queensbridge residents, too, have mixed feelings on the matter.</p>
<p id="Rus9cD">Back when the deal was still on, a coalition of Amazon supporters that included April Simpson, president of the Queensbridge Houses Tenant Association, staged a pro-Amazon rally to counter the anti-HQ2 protests that had been going on for months. “We’ve been representing the community for years, so what makes you think we ain’t going to represent them today with Amazon?” Simpson said at the rally, less than a week before Amazon pulled out of the deal. </p>
<p id="1mYELW">Louise McMillon, who lives in the nearby neighborhood of Astoria and works as a home health aide during the day, told me she was disappointed Amazon was no longer coming to Queens. </p>
<p id="jt1WW7">“I was looking forward to getting a night job there, but then I found out on the news that they’re not coming here,” she said, adding that she didn’t know much about the deal but had heard that only a few dozen jobs would be slated for public housing residents. </p>
<p id="UAG5nQ">Barby, a Queensbridge Houses resident who asked to only be identified by her first name, said she had signed an anti-HQ2 petition because the company did not seem invested in her community. “I live in the projects and they weren’t really going to help us, from what I understand,” she said. “However, it would’ve been good for people that need jobs — if they would’ve given us jobs.”</p>
<p id="mBalAx">After months of heated debate about whether Amazon’s presence would help or harm New Yorkers, Amazon is no longer coming to town. Public opinion toward Amazon’s decision to back out of the New York deal is just as varied as the reaction to the news that Amazon planned to build an office in the city in the first place. </p>
<p id="RhIym7">The HQ2 deal was so opaque that it was easy to point fingers in all directions, for some critics to blame the city while others blamed the state. Still others claimed Amazon’s opponents were willfully misrepresenting the facts. No one seems to agree on whether this is good or bad news for the city — and, more crucially, no one seems to agree on who to blame for the deal falling apart.</p>
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/15/18226825/amazon-hq2-long-island-city-new-york-reactionsGaby Del Valle2019-02-14T15:24:33-05:002019-02-14T15:24:33-05:00New York is better off without Amazon’s HQ2
<figure>
<img alt="Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/dShjvC4bZDumicKS1oykXcy6bPc=/274x0:3986x2784/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63053801/1078542150.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. | Emma McIntyre/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Without significant reform of land use, an influx of tech jobs would’ve hurt the city more than helped it.</p> <p id="UrnUEz">Amazon announced Thursday morning that, in the face of backlash from local elected officials to the intended tax subsidies associated with the plans to build “<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/6/18065666/amazon-hq2-backlash">HQ2</a>” in Long Island City, it is going to drop the project entirely. </p>
<p id="G4r3y3">That’s a good way for Amazon to send a message to other state and city governments around the country that may be considering tax incentives for Amazon facilities in the future: Jeff Bezos is not kidding around. But it’s also a win for the resurgent left in New York City, which rejected both the specifics of the plan and also more broadly the kind of coziness between elected officials and big business that the dealmaking represented. </p>
<p id="G3oa3H">While the question of local government subsidies to entice businesses remains an urgent one (see, for example, The Verge’s exposé of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027032/foxconn-wisconsin-plant-jobs-deal-subsidy-governor-scott-walker">Scott Walker’s disastrous $4.1 billion Foxconn boondoggle</a>), the HQ2 drama in many ways reveals an even bigger policy failure. </p>
<p id="KDqmON">Simply put, while locating large pools of high-salary white-collar positions in the New York and DC metro areas makes a ton of sense for Amazon, it doesn’t actually make that much sense for either greater New York City or greater Washington. Amazon’s presence will tend to exacerbate those cities’ crises of housing affordability and overburdened transportation infrastructure. </p>
<p id="agJM9Q">And it makes no sense at all for the United States of America, which urgently needs more economic opportunity in dozens of other metro areas that have a different set of problems. America needs to find a way to do better than this. Being the home to a very large share of the world’s most dynamic high-tech companies is an incredible source of national strength, but in practical terms it does not benefit most Americans. With better policy, it could.</p>
<h3 id="cBgMgE">Adding new high-paid jobs to already expensive cities is a mixed bag</h3>
<p id="L5gC69">HQ2 initially attracted a huge range of bidders, all of which offered various inducements to Amazon. In the end, though, Amazon didn’t so much go with the highest bidder as simply select two fairly conventional choices — Long Island City in New York and the Crystal City area in the DC suburbs — happy to swoop up the generous tax abatements offered by Virginia and the even more generous ones offered by New York. </p>
<p id="45bZR8">These kinds of packages are always controversial and raise the question of whether whatever the public sector will be kicking in is worth the price. But the scarier news for places like New York is the evidence that an Amazon-type influx might not be beneficial at all. </p>
<p id="E6tnoB">Over a decade ago, housing economists <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w12331">Janna Matlack and Jacob Vigdor investigated the economic impact of unequal economic development</a> and found that “in tight housing markets, the poor do worse when the rich get richer.” </p>
<p id="a8OAqd">A “tight” housing market, in this case, is a market like greater New York or greater Washington, where the cost of buying a house greatly exceeds the actual construction costs of new buildings. The problem in markets like this is that when the rich get richer — say because a new office complex opens and hires 20,000 to 30,000 people for six-figure salaries — the price of scarce housing rises. </p>
<p id="wvxJI4">If you actually get a job at Amazon or have the kind of job skills that you plausibly could get a job at Amazon, this will pay off for you because you’ll end up with higher wages that more than equal the higher rent. But if you work in a restaurant or cut hair or clean houses or drive a cab, you’ll probably end up worse off. </p>
<p id="K8JXDp">This is, however, not an <em>inevitable</em> consequence of the rich getting richer. Matlack and Vigdor find that in housing markets that are “slack” — where there is either plenty of existing housing or it is easy to build new homes so that sale prices approximately equal construction costs — there are spillover benefits. In a slack market, the new rich people don’t impact rents very much but their presence creates new working-class job opportunities. In the right location, in other words, a big new Amazon office park could have been a boon. But America didn’t get the right location. </p>
<h3 id="P76urk">Tight markets could be less tight</h3>
<p id="Tx8K8W">Of course, the fact that the housing markets in the DC and New York areas are “tight” is not a fact of nature. </p>
<p id="x69BAY">This is especially clear in the case of Crystal City, which is part of a small dense corridor of development east of the highway US 1 that is immediately adjacent to the low-density single-family home neighborhoods of Aurora Highlands and Arlington Ridge.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/v_iXTUVfGEEQSBeHZ_eFCywb4XM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13759312/Screen_Shot_2018_11_06_at_11.43.28_AM.png.jpeg">
</figure>
<p id="NQFOcU">There’s nothing wrong with detached single-family homes, to be clear, but what’s going on here is that it’s illegal to build anything more dense than that. If the law was changed to allow townhouses and apartment buildings to be built on that land, the area could accommodate a huge influx of new people who would live within a 10- to 30-minute walk from the new Crystal City office park as well as the job centers to the north around Pentagon City. </p>
<p id="aLQVd4">Thinking more regionally, the even-pricier close-in parts of the metro area — specifically the northern part of Arlington County, the portions of DC west of Rock Creek Park, and much of the Bethesda and Chevy Chase areas in Montgomery County — could easily accommodate huge amounts of transit-accessible development if the zoning code allowed it. </p>
<p id="nRBV9i">New York City is, overall, much denser than DC and thankfully does not ban apartment buildings across most of its terrain. Still, relative to prices, New York actually does very little building of new units these days. And the New York suburbs on Long Island have some of the most viciously exclusionary practices of anywhere in America. And of course in Seattle itself, where the problem of tight housing markets first started to bite Amazon, apartments are <a href="https://www.seattle.gov/dpd/cs/groups/pan/@pan/documents/web_informational/dpdd016840.pdf">only legal in about 17 percent of the buildable land</a>. </p>
<p id="59BFI6">Ending <a href="https://www.dataforprogress.org/housing/">apartment bans</a> (and related practices like regulatory parking minimums that do apply in most of New York even where apartments are legal) would not solve every housing policy problem in the United States. But it would greatly alleviate the middle-class housing crunch while generating new property tax revenue (rather than requiring subsidies) that could be used for housing vouchers or new public housing developments. </p>
<p id="Hz3VJ5">Of course, local policymakers are deeply reluctant to change their existing zoning practices because incumbent homeowners normally like neighborhoods to stay the way they are. But if they refuse to do so, the best cure for excessive government regulation of housing markets might be for the federal government to take a less laissez-faire attitude toward these major corporate relocation questions. </p>
<h3 id="qg3UjL">America could direct corporate investment to slack markets</h3>
<p id="jiczHP">The economic impact of locating a new corporate campus with 20,000 highly paid jobs would be radically different in a city like Detroit, Cleveland, or Indianapolis, for the simple reason that these cities have a lot of slack in their housing markets. </p>
<p id="FVLcmd">One easy way to see that is with an index that <a href="https://www.buildzoom.com/blog/paying-for-dirt-where-have-home-values-detached-from-construction-costs">Issi Romem, an economist at UC Berkeley, and BuildZoom created</a>, which compares the average price of buying a house in a given metro area to the average “replacement cost” of a house in that area. The replacement cost is basically what you would need to spend to replace the house if it were destroyed in a tornado tomorrow. </p>
<p id="NGVK2x">In a healthy housing market, the ratio should be a little bit higher than one because the cost of buying a house includes the price of land. But in a market suffering from a regulation-induced housing scarcity problem, the ratio will soar while in a depressed market suffering from very low demand the ratio ends up being below one.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/FYs2grWGPdJp3srfmNR02Z39Rw8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13759315/Screen_Shot_2018_11_06_at_11.59.01_AM.png.jpeg">
</figure>
<p id="8uhbwy">As you can see from this chart, New York and Washington already have some of the highest ratios in the country. Adding new high-end jobs to these very tight markets is only going to further squeeze the poor. </p>
<p id="LYFPNN">By contrast, adding a bunch of new jobs to one of the cities where the ratio is below one would be an incredibly useful local economic stimulus. Housing affordability is good, but when homes get more expensive to replace than to buy, the market turns dysfunctional. It’s no longer economically rational for landlords to invest in maintaining the properties they own. Middle-class homeowners tend to try to keep things in good order whether or not it’s economically rational, but that simply means people are pouring time and money into a money-losing investment. </p>
<p id="hv2oXe">Some of these cities are clearly too small to support an office complex on the scale Amazon is talking about. But <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/columbus/news/2018/04/03/downtown-cleveland-continuing-to-build-momentum.html">downtown Cleveland already has about 100,000 jobs in it</a>, which is (obviously) less than central Manhattan but about double Long Island City. And the Detroit metropolitan area has a slightly higher population than Greater Seattle, though the latter will quickly overtake it. Cleveland and Detroit also feature major airports that currently operate below their historical peak passenger loads, and are blessed with first-rate cultural amenities (museums, sports teams, live performance venues, etc.) as part of the legacy of their pasts as more prosperous cities.</p>
<p id="zg1h7J">None of which is to say that Amazon made a mistake by planning to open its branch offices in two prosperous superstar cities. Tech workers, rationally, prefer to live in cities that feature multiple tech employers because that gives them exit options and flexibility. That, in turn, means that companies that want to hire tech workers like to operate in cities that other tech companies operate in. That means first and foremost the Bay Area, followed by New York and Seattle, followed by DC and perhaps Boston and Austin. </p>
<p id="WuqqhZ">But the overall dynamic of rich cities getting richer while their low-income residents actually get poorer and the legacy infrastructure and housing stock in the midwest steadily deteriorates is profoundly dysfunctional. The wishful thinking that the HQ2 search touched off followed by its predictable endgame shows this isn’t a problem that’s going to fix itself — federal policymakers need to take a stronger hand in steering these kind of decisions if we want things to ever change. </p>
<p id="rU1dzc"></p>
<p id="div-gpt-ad-desktop_article_medrec_dynamic_1"></p>
<p id="uMUnpZ"></p>
<p id="RvhUp3"></p>
<p id="MqowVa"> </p>
<p id="div-gpt-ad-desktop_article_body"></p>
<p id="IB3mBq"></p>
<p id="KD0byV"></p>
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/14/18225001/hq-2-new-york-canceled-housing-impactMatthew Yglesias2019-02-14T13:38:08-05:002019-02-14T13:38:08-05:00Amazon won’t build HQ2 in New York City after all
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7UCISSXPjeLnkfbLjGq6bOr7sro=/254x0:4299x3034/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63053789/GettyImages_1091271442.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Protesters unfurl anti-Amazon banners from the balcony of a hearing room during a New York City Council Finance Committee hearing titled Amazon HQ2 Stage 2: Does the Amazon Deal Deliver for New York City Residents? at New York City Hall, January 30, 2019. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>After months of protest, the e-commerce giant confirmed that it’s scrapping the deal.</p> <p id="ZSNUUl">Amazon is canceling its plan to build a new corporate campus in New York City. The news, first reported<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/14/nyregion/amazon-hq2-queens.html"> by the New York Times</a>, comes less than a week after reports began surfacing that the e-commerce giant was considering pulling out of the deal, which Amazon initially disputed.</p>
<p id="pRhLHL">“After much thought and deliberation, we’ve decided not to move forward with our plans to build a headquarters for Amazon in Long Island City, Queens,” a spokesperson told the Times in a statement. “For Amazon, the commitment to build a new headquarters requires positive, collaborative relationships with state and local elected officials who will be supportive over the long-term. While polls show that 70% of New Yorkers support our plans and investment, a number of state and local politicians have made it clear that they oppose our presence and will not work with us to build the types of relationships that are required to go forward with the project we and many others envisioned in Long Island City.”</p>
<p id="YAZfIH">Amazon framed its new search for a corporate headquarters<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2017/09/07/amazon-is-looking-for-a-city-to-site-a-second-5-billion-headquarters/?utm_term=.d40a73658589"> as a competition</a>, encouraging cities across North America to submit proposals and claiming the winning city would be rewarded with 50,000 jobs and billions of dollars in investments. But long before the winning cities were announced, critics began speculating that Amazon knew where it wanted to open its new offices all along and had used the competition as a way to wrest maximum incentives from its desired locations. </p>
<p id="rC7NDE">Opposition to Amazon’s decision to put half of its so-called <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/5/18066814/amazon-hq2-locations-selected">“second headquarters”</a> in New York City — the other half will be built in the Arlington, Virginia, suburb of Crystal City, which Amazon has seemingly rechristened National Landing — <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/6/18065666/amazon-hq2-backlash">began as soon as the deal was announced</a>. While New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/19/18103411/cuomo-de-blasio-amazon-hq2-defense">lauded the deal</a> as an opportunity to provide thousands of locals with high-paying tech jobs, other lawmakers decried the <a href="https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-selects-new-york-city-and-northern-virginia-for-new-headquarters?utm_source=social&utm_medium=tw&utm_campaign=jci&utm_term=amznews&utm_content=HQ2&linkId=59566274">massive tax subsidies</a> the city and state governments promised Amazon, which totaled more than $3 billion. </p>
<p id="EXtJuK">Even though neither the city nor the state was technically <em>giving</em> money to Amazon, critics said these tax incentives <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/15/18096181/long-island-city-amazon-hq2-protest">were essentially robbing local agencies</a> like the New York City Housing Authority, which oversees the city’s deteriorated public housing, and the Metropolitan Transit Agency, which is responsible for the city’s crumbling subways and buses, of much-needed revenue.</p>
<p id="dR4y4S">But the fiercest opposition to the HQ2 deal didn’t come from politicians; it came from a coalition of local community organizations, including the immigrant rights group Make the Road New York, New York Communities for Change, VOCAL New York, the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the Real Estate, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. These groups not only criticized the subsidies, tax breaks, and other financial incentives Amazon was promised but also expressed concern that the tech giant’s presence in the already heavily gentrified neighborhood of Long Island City would <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/9/18067908/amazon-hq-2-new-york-virginia-dc-lic-crystal-city">push low-income people out of the area</a>. </p>
<p id="ODG9Bp">Critics also lambasted Amazon’s<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/12/12/18137604/amazon-workers-new-york-unionize"> staunch anti-union stance</a>; the conditions in its<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/12/18138246/amazon-hq2-new-york-city-hearing"> Staten Island warehouse</a> and<a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/14/18141291/amazon-fulfillment-center-east-africa-workers-minneapolis"> other fulfillment centers around the world</a>, where workers often complain of long hours, low pay, and unrealistic expectations; and the fact that the company<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/23/18013376/amazon-ice-facial-recognition-aws-rekognition"> once pitched its facial recognition system to Immigration and Customs Enforcement</a>.</p>
<div id="UbAwNS">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">One factor that concerned Amazon executives was how activists in New York City broadened their attacks from the specifics of the deal to the company’s practices far beyond the five boroughs, on unions and working with ICE, per two people familiar with Amazon's decision.</p>— J. David Goodman (@jdavidgoodman) <a href="https://twitter.com/jdavidgoodman/status/1096144088234119169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p id="7B7mJy">Amazon’s decision to pull out of the deal is a decisive win for these groups, many of which opposed the tech giant’s presence in the city even before the deal had been announced.</p>
<p id="faFXR6">“Rather than addressing the legitimate concerns that have been raised by many New Yorkers, Amazon says you do it our way or not at all, we will not even consider the concerns of New Yorkers — that’s not what a responsible business would do,” Chelsea Connor, director of communications for the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union, said in a prepared statement. </p>
<p id="qXjjnB">“We applaud the news that Amazon is pulling out of HQ2,” read a statement from a coalition of advocacy groups including Make the Road and New York Communities for Change. “This victory is a clear demonstration of the power of workers and communities across Queens and New York who came together and are fighting for a city that works for us and not for billionaires like [Jeff] Bezos.”</p>
<p id="IWW0vF">According to the Times report, Cuomo arranged a meeting between Amazon executives and union leaders who opposed the development on Wednesday, just one day before Amazon announced it was scrapping the deal altogether. That meeting “ended without any compromise on the part of Amazon,” the Times reported. </p>
<p id="9fktRD">But not everyone is happy about Amazon’s decision to abandon its New York City plans. A <a href="https://www.nystateofpolitics.com/2019/02/siena-poll-new-yorkers-back-amazon-deal/">recent poll</a> by the Siena College Research Institute found that 56 percent of New Yorkers surveyed support the HQ2 deal, compared to 32 percent who oppose it; among city residents, those figures were 58 percent and 35 percent, respectively. Notably, support for the deal was greater in the suburbs, where 66 percent of voters said they were in favor. (Activist groups in the city, meanwhile, contended that the poll “fail[ed] to capture the growing opposition to Amazon’s HQ2 deal, especially in low-income communities of color and immigrant communities,” they said in a joint statement at the time.)</p>
<p id="P4Vxbb">“We are stunned by today’s unfortunate news. Politics and pandering have won out over a once-in-a-generation investment in New York City’s economy, bringing with it tens of thousands of solid middle class jobs,” Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, said in an emailed statement. “This sends the wrong message to businesses all over the world looking to call New York home. Who will want to come now?”</p>
<p id="LHexlb">City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, however, seems to think New York is perfectly capable of attracting other companies. “I look forward to working with companies that understand that if you’re willing to engage with New Yorkers and work through challenging issues New York City is the world’s best place to do business,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/nycspeakercojo/status/1096105149225975808">said on Twitter</a>. “I hope this is the start of a conversation about vulture capitalism and where our tax dollars are best spent.”</p>
<p id="IA6F4p">To some critics, Amazon’s decision to pull out of the deal underscores what they’ve been saying about the company all along: It’s Amazon’s way or the highway. “Like a petulant child, Amazon insists on getting its way or takes its ball and leaves,” state Sen. Michael Gianaris, who represents Long Island City and has been one of the deal’s staunchest opponents, told the Times. “The only thing that happened here is that a community that was going to be profoundly affected by their presence started asking questions.” </p>
<p id="G5KxHk">Gianaris pointed to the fact that Amazon doesn’t plan to turn to a different city to house its new corporate campus. “We do not intend to re-open the HQ2 search at this time,” Amazon’s lengthy statement to the Times reads. “We will proceed as planned in Northern Virginia and Nashville, and we will continue to hire and grow across our 17 corporate offices and tech hubs in the US and Canada.”</p>
<p id="hHHAfp">Even de Blasio, who oversaw the Amazon deal, claimed to be stunned by the company’s failure to negotiate. “We gave Amazon the opportunity to be a good neighbor and do business in the greatest city in the world,” he <a href="https://twitter.com/kellymakena/status/1096109441764732928">said in a statement</a>. “Instead of working with the community, Amazon threw away that opportunity.”</p>
<div id="01MPyz">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYCMayor</a> with all due respect, you made this deal in secret with no community input from LIC residents.<br><br>While Amazon is no angel, they played by your rules.<br><br>The early takeaway from this: don't be afraid of transparency and community inclusion. <a href="https://t.co/MPFUj6B1KX">https://t.co/MPFUj6B1KX</a></p>— Scott M. Stringer (@NYCComptroller) <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCComptroller/status/1096125308149866496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 14, 2019</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/14/18225003/amazon-hq2-new-york-pulling-outGaby Del Valle2019-02-08T14:18:20-05:002019-02-08T14:18:20-05:00Amazon is reportedly reconsidering its plan to open a second headquarters in NYC
<figure>
<img alt="Anti-Amazon Protestors Rally At NYC City Hall Against Queens Second Headquarters" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/x8zgQZEHeow2b_OTmtN7odUxRDo=/0x0:5092x3819/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63024100/1091271384.jpg.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>New Yorkers protest Amazon’s decision to open a new office in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Protesters and local lawmakers have opposed the deal since it was announced last November.</p> <p id="2k8yM1">Amazon may not be coming to Long Island City after all.</p>
<p id="o0I4sw">The e-commerce giant is reconsidering its plans to open a new 25,000-employee office in Queens, New York, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/facing-opposition-amazon-reconsiders-ny-headquarters-site-two-officials-say/2019/02/08/451ffc52-2a19-11e9-b011-d8500644dc98_story.html?utm_term=.75dc58f002f4">the Washington Post reported</a> on Friday. Two people “familiar with the company’s thinking” told the Post that Amazon was turned off by growing local opposition to the deal, which has been building up since Amazon announced it would be <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/5/18066814/amazon-hq2-locations-selected">building part of its so-called second headquarters</a> in the Queens neighborhood last November.</p>
<p id="AQFse0">“The question is whether it’s worth it if the politicians in New York don’t want the project, especially with how people in Virginia have been so welcoming,” a source familiar with the matter told the Post. </p>
<p id="2q5yxx">“We’re focused on engaging with our new neighbors — small business owners, educators, and community leaders,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Vox. “Whether it’s building a pipeline of local jobs through workforce training or funding computer science classes for thousands of New York City students, we are working hard to demonstrate what kind of neighbor we will be.” </p>
<p id="HdS12S">At least one person familiar with the company’s plans disputed the Post’s report that Amazon may end its plans in New York. “I think that’s a bit far in my opinion,” <a href="https://twitter.com/jdavidgoodman/status/1093921184201273344">a source told New York Times reporter J. David Goodman</a>.</p>
<p id="El3wSK">While Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio both touted the deal as a great opportunity to bring tens of thousands of well-paying jobs to New Yorkers and billions of dollars in tax revenue to the state, other officials have expressed concern about the financial incentives Amazon would get in exchange. The state and city governments offered Amazon a combined $3 billion in tax breaks, though Cuomo claimed that the revenue Amazon’s presence will generate outweighs any financial incentives the company will receive. </p>
<p id="zfXhNO">“New Yorkers have real unmet needs from their government,” state Sen. Michael Gianaris and City Council member Jimmy Van Bramer <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/6/18065666/amazon-hq2-backlash">said</a> in a joint statement in November after the deal was announced. “We are witness to a cynical game in which Amazon duped New York into offering unprecedented amounts of tax dollars to one of the wealthiest companies on Earth for a promise of jobs that would represent less than 3% of the jobs typically created in our city over a 10 year period.” At a January City Council hearing, Speaker Corey Johnson <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/2019/1/30/18204085/city-council-spars-with-amazon-edc-over-hq2-cost-concerns">told Amazon executives</a> that the tax breaks were happening at the expense of “63,000 people sleeping in homeless shelters in New York City,” “subways that are falling apart,” and “schools that aren’t getting the money they deserve.”</p>
<p id="R0FDNK">“This seems like vulture, monopolistic capitalism at its worst,” Johnson said.</p>
<p id="XSYfKY">One big concern is how Amazon’s presence in Long Island City, an already rapidly gentrifying neighborhood, could affect rent prices in the area. At <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/15/18096181/long-island-city-amazon-hq2-protest">an anti-Amazon rally</a> the day after the deal was announced, Van Bramer pointed out that the Queensbridge Houses, a public housing community a few blocks away from the site of the proposed Amazon development, had no heat or hot water. </p>
<p id="shZUzB">“But somehow folks who consider themselves progressive Democrats have seen fit to throw away $3 billion to the richest man in the world,” Van Bramer said, referring to Cuomo and de Blasio’s plans and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. (De Blasio, for his part, claimed Amazon’s proximity to the Queensbridge Houses would lead to <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/19/18103411/cuomo-de-blasio-amazon-hq2-defense">“incredible synergy”</a> between the two.)</p>
<p id="mbvMyj">Amazon’s opponents have also expressed concerns about the company’s labor practices both in its <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/12/18138246/amazon-hq2-new-york-city-hearing">Staten Island warehouse</a> and around the world, as well as its <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/12/12/18137604/amazon-workers-new-york-unionize">staunch anti-union stance</a>. “If the Amazon deal falls apart, they will have nobody to blame but themselves,” Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which has repeatedly spoken out against the deal, said in a statement. </p>
<p id="tlqVXW">“With their long history of abusing workers, partnering with ICE to aid their persecution of immigrant communities, and contributing to gentrification and a major housing crisis in their hometown of Seattle, New Yorkers are right to raise their concerns and opposition to this plan. New Yorkers won’t be bullied by Jeff Bezos, and if Amazon is unwilling to respect workers and communities they will never be welcome in New York City.”</p>
<p id="yr1E2w">As <a href="https://ny.curbed.com/2019/2/8/18217129/amazon-hq2-new-york-long-island-city-reconsider">Curbed notes</a>, Gianaris, who represents Long Island City in the state Senate, was recently nominated to the Public Authorities Control Board, which would ultimately have approval power over the project. Gianaris’s position on the board could lead to the deal falling apart.</p>
<p id="ZAkBEi">But it certainly doesn’t seem that Amazon has given up on New York City quite yet. The Post reports that Amazon has hired a lobbying firm and a public relations firm to boost its reputation among New Yorkers. The company also recently put an ad out for a “senior community affairs manager” who would be responsible for “developing a positive partnership with local stakeholders, community groups, and nonprofits.”</p>
<p id="nusLTH">Cuomo and de Blasio, the Amazon deal’s most fervent advocates, have been in damage control mode since November. Earlier this week, de Blasio claimed that New York <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/de-blasio-believes-new-york-will-turn-amazon-into-union-friendly-company-11549410415">could help shift Amazon’s stance on unions</a>. During a Friday appearance at the Crest Hollow Country Club on Long Island, Cuomo reportedly stressed the need for Amazon’s presence in New York. “We have to make Amazon a reality,” <a href="https://twitter.com/mayakauf/status/1093927466450763777">he said</a>. </p>
<p id="Zz6A76">It’s also possible that Amazon may be trying to force the city’s hand by threatening to scrap the project altogether. Gianaris, for his part, <a href="https://twitter.com/JimmyVielkind/status/1093941403737042946">told the Wall Street Journal’s Jimmy Vielkind</a> that it was “very curious” that Cuomo “had a slide ready to be presented 10 minutes after the news broke that Amazon was reconsidering. A cynic might believe this is all orchestrated.” </p>
<p id="Vziy06">And as <a href="https://twitter.com/plitter/status/1093930367986397191">Curbed’s Amy Plitt pointed out</a>, Amazon retaliated against Seattle after the city, which is home to Amazon’s main campus, passed a law that would have levied a tax on Amazon and other large companies to provide additional funding for homelessness services and affordable housing. The City Council ended up <a href="https://gizmodo.com/seattle-repeals-head-tax-amid-pressure-from-amazon-1826768425">repealing</a> the law.</p>
<p id="grbWzi">For now, Amazon’s future in New York remains uncertain. It could choose to stay in New York despite mounting opposition, opt to build a bigger campus in Crystal City, Virginia — the other half of the company’s so-called “HQ2” — or turn to one of the hundreds of cities that competed for the opportunity last year.</p>
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/2/8/18217338/amazon-hq2-headquarters-new-york-queensGaby Del Valle2018-12-12T16:30:04-05:002018-12-12T16:30:04-05:00New York already has thousands of Amazon workers — and some are unionizing to demand better conditions
<figure>
<img alt="People opposed to Amazon’s plan to locate a headquarters in New York City hold a protest outside of an Amazon book store on 34th. St. on November 26, 2018 in New York City." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1_w2kLyH3LMnlZyvOG_z8gr7WDQ=/352x0:3200x2136/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62671515/GettyImages_1065471456.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>People opposed to Amazon’s plan to locate a hub in New York City hold a protest outside of an Amazon book store on 34th Street on November 26, 2018, in New York City. | Stephanie Keith/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Amazon claims it provides “world-class benefits.” Its warehouse workers say they’re underpaid and overworked.</p> <p id="4Y3ddX">Amazon has yet to break ground on its new Queens-based office park, which the company is referring to as a “second headquarters,” but it already has a large footprint in New York City.</p>
<p id="QSOPuZ">At a hearing before New York’s City Council on Wednesday, Amazon executives explained that HQ2 was an expansion of its “already significant presence” in the city. “Many people are surprised to learn that we already have thousands of employees in New York City across our retail, operations, and web services teams,” Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, said in his opening remarks to the council. More than 2,500 of those employees work at an Amazon warehouse on Staten Island. According to Huseman, they “make an average of $17.50 to $23 per hour and receive world-class benefits.”</p>
<p id="Xl73JC">But on Tuesday night, those very workers announced their plans to<a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/12/12/18137604/amazon-workers-new-york-unionize"> form a union</a>. Citing inadequate pay, 12-hour shifts, and impossible performance quotas, the workers are using the company’s plans to expand in New York — and the $3 billion in tax breaks that it’s receiving from the city and state governments — as leverage. </p>
<p id="EQmkkX">Some of those workers attended a press conference before the City Council hearing, where they described uncomfortable — and occasionally dangerous — conditions at the company’s Staten Island warehouse. </p>
<p id="z8cnu9">“Ever since they opened, management has forced everyone at the warehouse to work 12-hour shifts for five or six days a week,” Rashad Long, an employee who has been working at the warehouse since October, said in a statement read by a colleague. </p>
<p id="5lLF4q">Long said his daily commute was four hours round-trip, and that Amazon had failed to provide warehouse workers with transportation to the facility despite having promised to do so. (The warehouse is inaccessible by subway and is more than 40 minutes away from the Staten Island Ferry by bus, making the commute difficult for those who don’t have a car or live in other boroughs.) </p>
<div id="g9NAPc">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Queens protestors dropping a banner during NYC City Council to send a message to <a href="https://twitter.com/amazon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Amazon</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/NYCMayor?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYCMayor</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/NYGovCuomo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NYGovCuomo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NoAmazonNYC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NoAmazonNYC</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HQ2Scam?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HQ2Scam</a> <a href="https://t.co/O4XE2lOe9r">pic.twitter.com/O4XE2lOe9r</a></p>— Zachary Lerner (@ZacharyLerner) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZacharyLerner/status/1072878937137664000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 12, 2018</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p id="cO6uu5">“Health and safety at the facility is also a huge issue,” Long’s statement read. In addition to long hours and inadequate pay, Long mentioned safety concerns including broken sprinklers and poor temperature control. “Product bins are overstuffed and our breaks are few and far between. The third and fourth floors are so hot that I sweat through my whole shift, even when it’s freezing cold outside. We have asked the company to provide air conditioning for us, but they told us that the robots inside can’t work in cold weather, so there’s nothing they can do about it.”</p>
<p id="pUl3eS">In a statement to Vox, an Amazon spokesperson said the company respects employees’ right to join a union but noted that the company encourages workers to bring up concerns “directly.”</p>
<p id="7GG0Zz">“Amazon maintains an open-door policy that encourages employees to bring their comments, questions, and concerns directly to their management team for discussion and resolution,” Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty told Vox’s Alexia Fernández Campbell via email. “We firmly believe this direct connection is the most effective way to understand and respond to the needs of our workforce.”</p>
<div id="tJWXq1">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">“This brings me to tears, we make this boxes and pack them getting ready to ship. People work so hard. We have so many boxes that the machines can’t handle them, it’s a safety and health issue and that’s all I think when I’m at work. I’m always stressed” <a href="https://twitter.com/amazon?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@amazon</a> Worker <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HQ2Scam?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#HQ2Scam</a> <a href="https://t.co/1MbxTU7pgb">pic.twitter.com/1MbxTU7pgb</a></p>— NYCC (@nychange) <a href="https://twitter.com/nychange/status/1072869619478671360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 12, 2018</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div>
<p id="7ZF9Yv">Lighty also denied that conditions at the warehouse were dangerous, saying that a city-sanctioned fire director is “on-site at all times to consistently monitor the systems and run tests,” and added that employees are prohibited from working more than 60 hours a week but are eligible for overtime.</p>
<p id="JE2Mhp">But in<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-12/employees-at-amazon-s-new-nyc-warehouse-launch-unionization-push"> an interview with Bloomberg</a>, which first reported the unionization effort, warehouse employee Sharon Bleach said she found the company’s “power hours” — during which employees are encouraged to move quickly and are incentivized with raffle tickets — insulting. “Every day, they’re changing the goal — the finish line is changed every day,” Bleach said.</p>
<p id="wNOvx1">At the hearing, several members of the City Council grilled Huseman on the conditions at the Staten Island warehouse, which the company refers to as a “fulfillment center.” According to Huseman, all employees there have health insurance and are eligible for “the same benefits” as office workers, including 20 weeks of paid family leave. But when he was asked whether he could guarantee that Amazon workers in New York City would not be required to work for more than eight hours each day, Huseman demurred.</p>
<p id="Hmr8cJ">“Right now, I’m not in a position to negotiate that,” he said. </p>
<p id="xQCuS8"><em>Want more stories from The Goods by Vox? </em><a href="http://vox.com/goods-newsletter"><em>Sign up for our newsletter here.</em></a><em> </em></p>
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/12/12/18138246/amazon-hq2-new-york-city-hearingGaby Del Valle2018-12-12T14:10:06-05:002018-12-12T14:10:06-05:00Amazon workers in New York just announced their plan to unionize
<figure>
<img alt="A union representative for Amazon warehouse workers in Swansea, Wales, joins the workers’ protest of what they say are ‘inhuman conditions’ at the company’s warehouse. Protests were held at five Amazon sites across the UK on Black Friday." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/U9crVdWORj7-DYHyNKhK2YlbwR0=/151x0:4166x3011/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62670450/GettyImages_1071325012.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>A union representative for Amazon workers in Swansea, Wales, protests the ‘inhuman conditions’ workers describe at the company’s warehouses. Protests were held at five Amazon sites across the United Kingdom on November 23, 2018. | Matthew Horwood/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>“We are not robots, we are human beings.”</p> <p id="dh6OHy">Amazon warehouse workers in New York City are trying to unionize — a development the $800 billion company <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/technology/amazon-proves-infertile-soil-for-unions-so-far.html">has tried to prevent</a> for years. </p>
<p id="O2glkG">On Wednesday, a group of employees from the company’s warehouse in Staten Island announced the plan along with organizers from the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. That union is also working <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/9/7/17831462/amazon-whole-foods-employees-unionize">with employees at Whole Foods</a>, a grocery chain now owned by Amazon. </p>
<p id="umPm5D">The union push, which was <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-12/employees-at-amazon-s-new-nyc-warehouse-launch-unionization-push">first reported by Bloomberg</a>, centers on a simple proposal: If the city and state are giving Amazon a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/16/18095094/amazon-hq2-jobs">$3 billion tax break</a> to build a regional headquarters nearby, then the company should use some of that money to pay higher wages to warehouse workers and improve their working conditions. And, the organizers say, a negotiated labor contract is the only way to get the company to do so. </p>
<p id="Mc36n8">If a majority of the Staten Island workers agree, they will be the first Amazon employees in the United States to join a labor union — a move the company <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/technology/amazon-proves-infertile-soil-for-unions-so-far.html">has long tried to discourage</a>.</p>
<p id="fUDQzH">At a press conference outside New York City Hall Wednesday morning, employees from the company’s Staten Island location shared a long list of complaints. Rashad Long, who started working there in October, said managers force employees to work 12-hour shifts five or six days in a row.</p>
<p id="S01zrj">“It takes me four hours every day to get to and from work. Between my work schedule and my commute, I haven’t seen my daughter in weeks,” Long said in his statement, which one of his colleagues read during the conference.</p>
<p id="JzRjvA">Long’s co-workers nodded as he described feeling unsafe at work — he specifically mentioned that the warehouse’s sprinkler system and smoke detectors are broken. </p>
<p id="74AU6E">But his most disheartening complaint suggests that employees feel less valued than the robots nearby.</p>
<p id="ejgMG7">“The third and fourth floors are so hot that I sweat through my shirts even when it’s freezing cold outside,” Long said. “We have asked the company to provide air conditioning, but the company told us that the robots inside cannot work in the cold weather.”</p>
<div id="SUyiL6">
<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v3.2';
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script><div class="fb-video" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/RWDSU.UFCW/videos/539399146465633/"><blockquote cite="https://www.facebook.com/RWDSU.UFCW/videos/539399146465633/" class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore">
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/RWDSU.UFCW/videos/539399146465633/"></a><p>Amazon Staten Island worker Rashad just finished a 12 hour shift. He was so exhausted just making it here after working that long with out a real break that one of our organizers Kim shared his remarks. WATCH NOW:</p>Posted by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RWDSU.UFCW/">Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU)</a> on Wednesday, December 12, 2018</blockquote></div>
</div>
<p id="KYDjJ1">A spokesperson for Amazon said the company respects employees’ right to choose whether to join a labor union.</p>
<p id="fLDa1L">“Amazon maintains an open-door policy that encourages employees to bring their comments, questions, and concerns directly to their management team for discussion and resolution,” Rachael Lighty, a spokesperson for Amazon, said in a statement to Vox. “We firmly believe this direct connection is the most effective way to understand and respond to the needs of our workforce.”</p>
<p id="Byx2xp">Lighty also disputed the employees’ complaints. She said the Staten Island warehouse has a fire director on site to make sure the sprinkler system and smoke detectors are working as required by law, and that employees are not allowed to work more than 60 hours a week. She added that the warehouse temperatures are regularly monitored to make sure they remain around 73 degrees Fahrenheit, and that Amazon offers employees the option to enroll in a state-run ride-sharing service called 511NY RideShare.</p>
<p id="qocmoE">The move to unionize comes at a tense moment for Amazon. The company is facing heated criticism for its decision to open regional offices in New York City and suburban Washington, DC — a decision that was made <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/technology/amazon-hq2-know.html">with no public input</a> and that will cost local taxpayers <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/9/18067908/amazon-hq-2-new-york-virginia-dc-lic-crystal-city">billions of dollars</a> in subsidies. </p>
<p id="v619Um">But the online retailer is also dealing with serious complaints from employees, who <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/17577614/amazon-prime-day-strike-boycotts">describe harrowing work conditions</a> and low pay at Amazon’s warehouses in the United States and across the world. In July, Amazon workers in Europe went on strike to protest what they described as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/7/16/17577614/amazon-prime-day-strike-boycotts">hot, windowless, soul-crushing work environments</a>. </p>
<p id="dkD1g9">In November, on Black Friday, workers at Amazon warehouses workers in Spain, Germany, and France <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-23/amazon-warehouse-workers-protest-in-europe-on-black-friday">organized</a> strikes, and protests were held in Italy and the United Kingdom. Workers in the US are getting restless too.</p>
<h3 id="JRxCqe">Amazon is not a fan of unions </h3>
<p id="DXtFQp">The union drive in New York will certainly intensify the ongoing labor disputes at Amazon. The company has fought past unionization efforts in Europe and has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/17/technology/amazon-proves-infertile-soil-for-unions-so-far.html">quashed past efforts</a> in the United States. </p>
<p id="LRq16c">But general worker unrest has been growing in recent months, reflecting widespread frustration that wages have barely kept up with inflation, even as the economy grows and businesses report strong profits.</p>
<p id="UtGIla">Amazon workers say that forming a union is the only way to get the company to change its ways. Talking to managers has not worked so far, Long said.</p>
<p id="XwgQCb">“During our new hire orientation, management promised they would provide us a shuttle service and ride shares to get us to and from the warehouse, which is located in a remote area of the island,” he explained in the statement shared during Wednesday’s press conference. “This has not happened. Instead, we all have to rely on an overcrowded MTA select bus service.” </p>
<p id="MP7tMB">Amazon and Whole Foods employees need to take a few more steps before they can officially form a union, though. A majority of employees in their workplaces need to sign union membership cards, to show their support for collective bargaining. If that happens, the company can voluntarily recognize the union. </p>
<p id="HCU0XO">If the company doesn’t want to recognize the union, then workers will have to hold an official unionization vote through the National Labor Relations Board, an independent federal agency that enforces US labor laws and collective bargaining rights.<strong> </strong>If a majority of employees vote in favor of unionizing, then Amazon is legally required to recognize the union. </p>
<p id="v4Vub8">Then, finally, they can begin to negotiate a labor contract.</p>
<p id="fnJo7l"></p>
https://www.vox.com/2018/12/12/18137604/amazon-workers-new-york-unionizeAlexia Fernández Campbell2018-11-20T07:50:01-05:002018-11-20T07:50:01-05:00I work in urban planning. Now Amazon’s coming to my city.
<figure>
<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/37jSWsinokR3-mHZ98hmzM3GnBw=/178x0:3022x2133/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/62361117/GettyImages_696675012.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>An Amazon logo in Amazon corporate headquarters in Seattle. | David Ryder/Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here’s what worries me.</p> <p id="5Yjg2S">The year of speculation around Amazon’s HQ2 landing pad felt like nothing so much as a prolonged anxiety attack. Attracting corporations has generally been viewed as economic development, but Amazon, now valued at $1 trillion, feels bigger than Bell Labs, Under Armour, Twitter, or any given sports stadium. </p>
<p id="jicYQ6">As of last week, Amazon has picked two new homes, each of which offered incentives and subsidies. Northern Virginia and New York City offered workforce cash grants of $22,000 per job and $48,000 per new job, respectively. New York is kicking in <a href="https://theweek.com/speedreads/807539/why-did-new-york-offer-amazon-3-times-tax-breaks-virginia-did">nearly three times</a> what Virginia offered. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/business/economy/amazon-hq2-va-long-island-city-incentives.html">Both probably overpaid</a>, given that they are already rich in the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-news/amazon-hq2-to-receive-more-than-28-billion-in-incentives-from-virginia-new-york-and-tennessee/2018/11/13/f3f73cf4-e757-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.ca3375c4fb49">“access to tech talent” </a>that Amazon stressed as paramount for its next location. And the loosely connected environs of Crystal City, Pentagon City, and Potomac Yards have been renamed, per northern Virginia’s response to Amazon’s request for proposals, as the agglomerated “National Landing.”</p>
<p id="EM7UaF">Amazon <em>is</em> bigger, both as balance sheets go and in how it feels. The fracas around the HQ2 search has been a concentrated version of what sociologist Harvey Molotch, <a href="https://web.ics.purdue.edu/~hoganr/SOC%20602/Spring%202014/Molotch%201976.pdf">in 1976, termed the “growth machine”</a>: the willingness of cities to prioritize economic development and corporate attraction. The underlying logic, which is not necessarily flawed, is that in order to provide public services, there must be a base to be taxed. And economic development is, fundamentally, better than decline, which results in a scarcity of resources most likely to hurt vulnerable and underresourced people.</p>
<p id="CHfu7F">Ergo, a city needs people who make lots of money to live in it, so that they can, ideally, kick in to the public infrastructure. But there’s always been tension between what Molotch describes as “politically mobilized local elites” — elected officials, private sector higher-ups, chambers of commerce — and the proletariat; the former is likely to handily benefit from growth, whatever it may be, while the latter often feels that its well-being and way of life is perhaps expendable.</p>
<p id="Plu3mD">I live in DC, right next door to Crystal City. I also work for an advocacy organization, the <a href="http://www.smartergrowth.net/">Coalition for Smarter Growth</a>, that fights for a more affordable and accessible region, primarily through urban policy and planning. Our ideological paradigm favors affordable development in places that are accessible by transit. We work specifically to prevent suburban sprawl, which is an environmental, inequality-exacerbating disaster. Amazon, unsurprisingly, has been at the forefront of many of minds in our universe since the HQ2 search was announced.</p>
<p id="CFMSnl">The DC area has an incredible regional transit system in Metrorail and Metrobus, and a growing mode share of people who walk and bike to work, but that isn’t enough to squelch the sentiment that the region is expensive and hard to get around. People who live here are right to be nervous about the Amazon effect, though Amazon is merely exposing what’s been true for decades: that accessible, affordable housing; frequent, reliable transit; well-protected jobs that pay living wages; and land use laws that support environmentally sustainable growth are talking points, but not necessarily priorities for elected officials. </p>
<p id="Ddc2Ru">Our region needed these fundamentals long before HQ2 was a twinkle in anyone’s eye, and would need them whether or not Amazon existed. It’s humbling to admit that for many people, we’ve failed to meaningfully provide.</p>
<p id="KIQk25">Here are three big takeaways to consider for DC residents who want to think about what this means for the region — and the country more broadly as we watch the new HQ2 cities develop.</p>
<h3 id="J5vbwk">Amazon choosing a second-tier city could have been more destructive</h3>
<p id="0MfXYZ">Amazon coming to Crystal City validates much of what smart-growth advocates have known for decades: Walkable, well-connected places are economic engines. Another northern Virginia site, further afield in Loudoun County, was also under consideration. But the metro-accessible, downtown-DC-proximate, and relatively dense Crystal City <a href="https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2018/11/15/amazon-site-charter-award-winning-plan">won out</a>. </p>
<p id="XKCwyS">There are also practical merits to Crystal City. It lost <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/05/19/crystal-city-matters/">17,000 jobs over five years</a> as a result of the military’s base realignment and closure initiative, and so has been <a href="https://commissions.arlingtonva.us/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2016/06/PDSP-Amendment-Actions-over-Time_JUN28_LRPC_GIVEN.pdf">readying itself</a> for <a href="https://ggwash.org/view/69791/crystal-city-is-probably-ready-for-hq2s-transformation">a large influx of workers anyway</a>. And <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/10/24/crystal-city-emerges-as-jbg-smiths-test-lab.html">developer JBG Smith</a> pulled most of its leasable space off the market on the same timeline as Amazon’s HQ2 search.</p>
<p id="MkCy1O">Nonetheless, corporations go where their CEOs want them to be, and Jeff Bezos has shown an obvious <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2017/01/12/jeff-bezos-is-the-anonymous-buyer-of-the-biggest-house-in-washington/">personal</a> <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephaniedenning/2018/09/19/why-jeff-bezos-bought-the-washington-post/">preference</a> for the DC area, which is also home to a large, existing pool of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-chooses-new-york-city-and-northern-virginia-for-additional-headquarters-1542075336?mod=hp_lead_pos1">skilled white-collar workers</a>—many of whom have clustered in this region <em>because</em> it’s one that epitomizes smart growth.</p>
<p id="socCnG">Contrary to <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/11/6/18065666/amazon-hq2-backlash">what some analysts</a> have said, this is, I think, a good thing. The bandied-about idea that Amazon should go to a place where it’s “needed,” likely some ailing Rust Belt town, is perverse, as is the idea that private corporations can be counted on to benevolently redistribute wealth. Cities like Cleveland, Ohio, where I lived for several years before moving back to DC, are replete with weak political and social <a href="https://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2018/09/05/serial-season-three-is-set-in-cleveland-will-focus-on-cuyahoga-county-courts">institutions</a>. Amazon, for its part, is not, should not be, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/13/upshot/amazon-headquarters-reviving-a-city-no-thanks.html">was never going to be</a> the fix for cities like it, which have so much more to lose. Just look at Wisconsin’s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/29/18027032/foxconn-wisconsin-plant-jobs-deal-subsidy-governor-scott-walker">Foxconn boondoggle</a>.</p>
<p id="m55PTA">Amazon plans to gradually hire 25,000 workers in northern Virginia. <a href="https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/amazon-effect/">This is not substantially greater than the number of workers the DC region adds yearly</a>. Nonetheless, Amazon <a href="https://www.getrevue.co/profile/caseynewton/issues/amazon-misreads-the-room-144903">feels like a blow </a>because it’s a single thing onto which we can graft any frustrations — traffic, expensive housing, irritating tech bros — about where we live. Adding workers to a region over time, even if it exacerbates income inequality just as much, has never come off as cataclysmic. But HQ2 does.</p>
<h3 id="gkAJLY">We’ll perceive Amazon as increasing income inequality — but that was likely to happen regardless</h3>
<p id="UN9dFw">Living in America has never been easy or affordable for many people, and is increasingly difficult and expensive for even more. In the 40 years since Molotch named the growth machine, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/">wages have stagnated</a>, <a href="https://www.americanbanker.com/news/consumer-debt-is-at-an-all-time-high-should-banks-be-worried">personal debt has exploded</a>, and the sense that our redistributive policies are largely <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/american-middle-class-disappearing-754735/">unfair</a> has <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5594671/">crept</a> into our discourse. Amazon’s arrival might once have been heralded as an unalloyed good. But in our current cultural context, the prospect of HQ2 felt, to any given person on the street, like a mixed bag at best and a looming disaster at worst.</p>
<p id="ljmvIz">The “HQ2 spectacle” was a <a href="https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2018/11/amazons-hq2-spectacle-isnt-just-shamefulit-should-be-illegal/575617/?utm_source=newsletter&silverid=%25%25RECIPIENT_ID%25%25&utm_campaign=citylab-daily-newsletter&utm_medium=email">race to the bottom</a>. But mayors and their backers didn’t have to participate. They did because <em>not</em> doing so is at odds with how American cities are currently run. There was no reasonable expectation that any place’s chamber of commerce class would pass on the opportunity to offer <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazon-headquarters-hq2-process_us_5beb6f28e4b0caeec2bf0ead">high-dollar tax breaks</a> to attract an employer, even if that employer doesn’t need them to make their math work.</p>
<p id="7JFaUr">There is no doubt that inequality, already raw, will intensify post-Amazon: People who have however minor a foothold <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/northern-virginia-property-owners-are-delighted-amazon-hq2-will-be-moving-in-renters-first-time-buyers-and-low-income-residents-arent/2018/11/13/47307aba-e457-11e8-b759-3d88a5ce9e19_story.html?utm_term=.2a2135436b88">will likely see their property values increase</a>, while others, especially renters, will struggle to pay ever-higher housing costs. <a href="https://wamu.org/story/18/11/14/theres-already-a-housing-crisis-in-the-d-c-area-will-amazon-make-it-worse/">We should be skeptical, though, of how much of that can be attributed to Amazon</a>, which should not be treated as exceptional in its capacity to transform places for good or ill. After all, we are hurtling toward a future in which something even greater than any corporation — the shifts in the climate in which we live — will profoundly and painfully alter our lives at a rate at which we have chosen not to comprehend.</p>
<h3 id="yhap5L">Any positive city developments that come from Amazon’s presence should have been prioritized by the public sector regardless</h3>
<p id="iPKG2v">In Crystal City, perhaps the specific planning projects that <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/11/06/viewpoint-how-does-crystal-city-rate-on-the-3-most.html">my colleagues and I have pushed</a>, like bus rapid transit, a second entrance to the Potomac Yard Metro station, and the conversion of Route 1 into a boulevard, are more likely to occur now that Amazon is coming. Or not. That’s the thing: Amazon may be big, but its expansion, functionally, is <a href="http://cityobservatory.org/amazon2hq2/">business as usual</a>. There are promises for critical transportation improvements, and Amazon’s presence offers an opportunity to push for more affordable housing. But there are no promises yet on how any of it will be implemented. We’ll be advocating just as much for our foundational priorities as we always have.</p>
<p id="Iz0Rc4">If you want the DC area, or Long Island City, to retain any semblance of a cost of living that’s not a gross financial strain, and to be places where commutes aren’t nightmarish, you <em>must</em> support more housing, more funding for affordable housing, strong protections and resources for existing tenants, living wages and unionization efforts, and the conversion of space for cars into space for buses and trains. And <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/upshot/home-ownership-nimby-bipartisan.html">no matter how</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/03/upshot/zoning-housing-property-rights-nimby-us.html">unpopular</a> such priorities are to some constituents, they must be carried out region-wide. Maybe Amazon can <a href="https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2018/11/09/viewpoint-amazon-s-hq2-can-inspire-action-on.html">“inspire action.”</a> But ultimately, the decisions to do these things are signed, sealed, and delivered by elected officials and administrators — the public sector. And they needed to happen decades ago. </p>
<p id="Q3S0Zf">The investments that cities, and this country, should have made by prioritizing frequent, reliable public transportation; affordable, fair housing; and the compact, accessible, and environmentally sustainable land use patterns that support the former should not be made for Amazon. They should be made for our own good, and to correct a nationwide pattern of environmental design that is not sustainable, resilient, or healthy. </p>
<p id="rmv5DV">Over our 20-year history, Coalition for Smarter Growth has celebrated numerous smart-growth victories in Crystal City and northern Virginia. Arlington’s <a href="http://www.pgplanning.org/DocumentCenter/View/9199/Article-on-Arlington-County-SGJRB-Corridor-9-18">Rosslyn-Ballston corridor</a>, planned in the 1960s, is a national model for building abundant housing near transit. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-opinions-are-local/wp/2018/11/16/amazons-arrival-requires-smarter-housing-in-arlington/?tt&utm_term=.9e0f66074c24">We know what we need to do</a>, and in several cases, we’ve done it well.</p>
<p id="4Ktb7h">But it is also reasonable to say that despite its best efforts on particular projects, our region has not meaningfully prioritized a shift to an ideology that puts affordability and access first. That’s why the Amazon anxiety is palpable. The inherent value of more six-figure jobs coming to the DC region, and the attendant industries that will support them, should not be overlooked. But many people feel as if they won’t be touched by those jobs, and that Amazon’s presence will lock them out of a place that they have increasingly tenuously been able to call home. </p>
<p id="Qgx71t">Growth does not solely look like the wholesale accommodation of a particular corporation’s headquarters; Crystal City is likely to accommodate Amazon, the workplace, just fine. But people don’t just work in cities; they live in them. That’s why cities are as volatile and in flux and as mobile as we deserve to be. </p>
<p id="OaSWUS">The best of that energy and interconnectedness is championed as the great promise of cities by the likes of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/books/review/Silver-t.html">booster economist Ed Glaeser</a>. But that can only be realized through investments in ourselves.</p>
<p id="ueTDI6"><em>Alex Baca is the engagement director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and was previously the general manager of Cuyahoga County’s bike-share system. She has worked in journalism, bike advocacy, architecture, construction, and transportation in DC, San Francisco, and Cleveland, and has written about all of the above for CityLab, Slate, Washington City Paper, and other publications.</em></p>
<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="tS0L5J">
<p id="Ck4lzo"><a href="http://www.vox.com/first-person"><strong>First Person</strong></a> is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/6/12/8767221/vox-first-person-explained"><strong>submission guidelines</strong></a>, and pitch us at <a href="mailto:firstperson@vox.com"><strong>firstperson@vox.com</strong></a>.</p>
https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/11/20/18103065/amazon-hq2-finalists-long-island-city-crystal-cityAlex Baca